“Art is Haiti’s own ambassador – it can make its own path,” says Edwidge Danticat, who recently talked to the Reporter about her most recent works, Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work and Haiti Noir.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – International observers are waiting on Haiti's president to accept a report suggesting his party's candidate be eliminated from a contentious election to choose the quake-ravaged country's next leader.

Haitian electoral officials must make the final decision on what to do, and the recommendations by observers from the Organization of American States could weigh heavily.

But first they have to officially receive the report.

That step was thwarted Monday when President Rene Preval's office declined to grant an appointment to the observation team, OAS assistant secretary-general Albert Ramdin said.

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, DEC. 29, 2010…..Although the Patrick administration had warned that a health coverage program that serves about 22,000 legal immigrants would run out of money by the end of December, Gov.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) _ The Organization of American States has asked Haitian President Rene Preval to delay announcing election results until an international panel of experts can review the vote, officials said Saturday.

Final results from the Nov. 28 first round _ showing which of the top three quarreling candidates would go on to a January runoff - were expected Monday.

Holding off an announcement would postpone conflicts between supporters, which resulted in riots and deadly clashes this month. But the panel of up to five electoral, legal and information-technology experts has not even been formed, and waiting for its review could drag into the new year.

“If this happened in my district, they would have been rioting already.”
Congressman Bobby Rush (Chicago, IL), nine days after the earthquake

It has been eleven months now since the earthquake destroyed much of Port-au-Prince. We’ve heard the statistics repeated into infinity: more than 1.5 million people are still homeless, living under tarps and bed sheets. Add to this a six-year foreign military occupation that most recently has been accused of bringing a deadly cholera epidemic to the country, and widespread awareness that although hundreds of millions were donated to help earthquake survivors practically nothing has changed in the concrete living conditions of said survivors, and it is truly impressive how patient and peaceful Haitians have been.

Sen. John KerrySen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, issued the following statement to the Boston Haitian Reporter on Thursday regarding the ongoing crisis surrounding Haiti's disputed presidential election:

"I urge the government of Haiti and the provisional electoral council (CEP) to address allegations and complaints about voting irregularities, some of which have already been verified. Failure to resolve these disputes before the runoff election scheduled for January 16 runs the risk of undermining legitimacy and confidence in the entire electoral process. It could also lead to more violence, which will only further destabilize and weaken a country that is already suffering in so many ways.”

Haiti's electoral council said Thursday that it will recount the ballots in the country's disputed presidential election, according to the Associated Press. The U.S. Embassy has said the preliminary results appeared to conflict with observers who monitored the initial count.

Election 2010: A Haitian voter defends her right to vote to MINUSTAH. Photo by Mark Snyder

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) _ The ballot is as crowded as the earthquake-ravaged capital itself, and a collapsed presidential palace is the prize. The voter rolls are filled with the dead, and living citizens are still struggling to figure out if and where they can vote while worrying about political violence and a spreading cholera epidemic.

It's Election Sunday in post-quake Haiti.

Some polls began opening in major cities nearly 50 minutes after the 6 a.m. scheduled time. Only 20 people were waiting when a central voting station opened in Cap-Haitien, a slow start in a largely rural country where people tend to be early risers.

The White House today issued a transcript of an on-the-record briefing held by officials at the US State Department to offer the latest information about the ongoing cholera epidemic in Haiti that has — so far— killed more than 1,100 people.